EDITORIAL: Demonizing the Kochs

The left is trying to convince the public to hate the Koch brothers. The billionaire businessmen Charles and David Koch are a favorite target of liberals because their support of free-market causes serves as a counterbalance to the inordinate sums given to Democrats from unions and Hollywood. The anti-capitalists turned up this effort on Sunday.

Mitt Romney was attending a fundraiser at the Southampton, N.Y. home of Julia and David Koch. The $50,000 per-person ticket proceeds went to Mr. Romney’s presidential campaign and Republican campaign committees. A few dozen protesters stood on the beach outside Mr. Koch’s Long Island residence carrying signs that said “Romney for president of the 1 percent” and “Get corporate $$ out of politics.”

They chanted during the family dinner hour, “David come out, we’ve got some [expletive] to talk about.” The hippies hired a plane to fly overhead with a banner saying,”Mitt Romney has a Koch problem.” Inside, according to the New York Post, the Republican presidential candidate retorted, “I understand there is a plane out there saying Mitt Romney has ‘a Koch problem.’ I don’t look at it as a problem; I look at it as an asset.”

Leftist agitator Andy Stepanian organized the group to “non-violently disrupt the fundraiser.” He claimed to have demonstrators from a hodgepodge of fellow traveler groups, including Occupy Wall Street, Greenpeace, Art Not War and MoveOn.org. Their stated purpose was to oppose “the ever-growing and pervasive influence of Koch Industries‘ money on our electoral system.” They are particularly peeved by rumors that the Kochs gave financial support to break the public union monopoly in Wisconsin, build the Keystone pipeline and dispel global warming nonsense.

“Because Charles Koch and David Koch’s exercise of their First Amendment rights concerning these important issues clash directly with the views of the president and his allies, they have repeatedly and falsely attacked them,” said Philip Ellender, the president of Koch Companies Public Sector. “Sunday’s coordinated protest, led by a convicted terrorist and used by the Democratic party to raise money for the president’s reelection, is the latest example of the attacks against us.”

More mainstream groups are also in on the coordinated effort. On Monday, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee sent out a fundraising appeal about the Koch fundraiser: “If you don’t think our country should be run by people who think you need a yacht for your opinion to count, then now’s the time to show it.”

It would be difficult to come up with a more hypocritical statement. While Occupiers pretend to do battle against money in politics, they’re really just going after Republicans. They didn’t protest outside the $40,000 a ticket dinner for Mr. Obama at actress Sarah Jessica Parker’s swank Manhattan house. They were nowhere to be found outside the $15 million bash at movie star George Clooney’s Los Angeles mansion. They have nothing bad to say about billionaire currency speculator George Soros and his infusion of cash into many of the groups that are protesting money in politics.

Ultimately, the attacks on the Kochs will fail because Americans recognize their family-owned business is built on hard work. The brothers employ 50,000 in the United States and they use their wealth to support causes that promote self-reliance, individual liberty and limited government. They live what they believe, unlike the liberals who try to tear them down.